Journal of Sacred Work

"…perhaps a world/ That is quietly sensed/ Across the air/ In another's heart/ Becomes the inner companion/ To one's own unknown."  – John O'Donohue

   A striking film called "In the Life of Another" (soulbiographies.com) features 93 year-old Alison Wood (at left) discussing some of the magical meetings in her long life.. A phrase appears on screen, "Is it possible that love could run unnannounced through the encounters of your life?"

   In just one of her stories, Ms. Wood discusses caring for a mentally ill children including one who was self abusive. "Does it help you to cut yourself?" she asked the boy. "Now that I know someone cares whether I do, I'll leave off doing that now," the boy said.

   "Is it possible that we have an important role to play in the life of another?" the film asks. Clearly, the answer is yes. Caregivers live most powerfully through relationship. We often don't know how impactful our loving acts may be.

   To bring each of the four relationships of Radical Loving Care alive in our work, we need to reflect on what loving relationships look like and what they can mean.

   My sister Martha has worked as a receptionist at The Toledo Hospital for nearly thirty years. Most of her encounters are, by the nature of her job, brief. Some people wouldn't call her a caregivers. But, I do. Her warmth and helpfulness have made many of her encounters sacred, sometimes in surprising ways.

   For example, every morning, as Martha arrives for the morning shift, she always smiles and says hello to the folks from the night shift as they head for their cars. She told me that one particular nurse never responded to her greeting and would always walk by in silence. One morning, after more than a year of this, the nurse handed Martha a note. "I'm very shy," the nurse wrote, "but, I just want you to know that your warm greeting morning after morning, has meant the world to me. Thank you for caring." 

   It's one thing to list and describe the four relationships of loving caregiving. It's another to open our hearts deeply enough so that these relationships become sacred encounters. That's what happened for Martha and the shy nurse in their one-second encounters at dawn.

   Sometimes, I believe the notion of sacredness in encounters is over-dramatized. Encounters can take on a holy feeling when Love meets a patient in deep pain. Yet, as Martha's story signals, small gestures like a smile or a simple touch on the hand by a caring stranger can also take on a sacredness of their own. So can a laugh. So can, even, a glance.

   Caregiver Lois Powers, a cafeteria cashier at Baptist Hospital for twenty five years (she's now retired demonstrated this every day. As she took cash and made change, she would tell a joke or, if the next person seemed sad (perhaps having just left a loved one in pain) she would just touch her hand.

   Often, caregivers tell me: "I don't have time to be loving to every single person I meet. I have too many patients." These caregivers have too strict an idea of what is involved in sacred encounters.

   It doesn't have to take a long time to share Love. It doesn't always require that we sit down and gaze deeply into the eyes of another while listening for two hours.

   What matters is that we listen "across the air" to the heart of another. When we go to that place, even if for a moment, we can engage Love's energy, sometimes in a way that is profoundly healing.

   Yes, we can live Love with every person we encounter. You've seen people that do this and so have I. These are the caregivers who model for us what it means to live with grace.

-Erie Chapman